Past Couple of Years

These past couple of years, I have had life defining moments that have changed my life drastically. There has been at least a big one each year and those are what I want to talk about right now. As a side note before I get into my thoughts, I think it is interesting how much I have gone through these past couple of years. Most people can't even imagine what it is like and/or will never go through as much as I have in their lifetime. Now to my thoughts...

The year that I got out of high school, 2006, is the year that I finally came out to my best friend who ended up becoming my first boyfriend. That was a major defining moment in my life. It was time for me to start accepting myself for who I am and not hide it anymore. Throughout high school, I knew that I was gay. I had so many crushes on guys and never one on a girl. I never had fantasies about girls, just guys. I wanted to hook up with some of the cutest guys and date them, but I knew that it would never happen and I kept lying to myself and others about the whole situation. Coming out was a very liberating experience. I guess it also helped that my friend came out to me that very same night. I was the first one he ever came out to too. This then lead to a relationship that I will never forget and never regret. It taught me a lot. It taught me that I can have love in my life and that I'm not the only one in the Church that experiences SSA or who is gay.

Then the next year, late 2007/early 2008, I was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease. This changed my way of living. In late 2007, I started getting really sick and I lost a lot of weight (50 lbs), which was all muscle :(. I then started getting worse and I had extreme pain in my abdomen. I eventually went to the hospital and found out that I had Crohn's. My life has definitely not been the same since then. I have been learning to live with pain almost constantly for a year now. There are good and bad weeks, but it is still hard. Sometimes it is so bad that I feel like there a weight on me that will never lift up, but I know that it goes away eventually. This experience has taught me that I can still push myself through the hard times and do what I need to do. It has also taught me that I can be anything that I want to be, even though it might cause a lot of pain and hardship. Another thing that I have learned is that I can change my life to fit it to my situation. I think that is probably one of the most important things that I have learned.

Now it is late 2008 and I might be diagnosed with liver cancer. This is definitely going to be a defining moment in my life if I am diagnosed. I can't even imagine how drastically my life is going to change and how it is going to be affect. What does a 20 year old do if they have cancer? Who has ever heard of a 20 year old having cancer (I know that there are people out there who do get it this young, but nobody I have ever known)? Who would have ever thought that I could get cancer at 20? It's really kind of scary, but I know that I have been preparing for it these past couple of years with the defining moments in my life along with everything else I have been going through.

People Pleaser

Hello, my name is Sean and I am a people pleaser. If you haven't met me, you'll have to believe me. It is something that I do. I love seeing people happy and knowing that I played a part in making them happy. I can sometimes really careless about myself in order to make someone else happy, except if the situation is making me look bad. The problem with being a people pleaser is that in order to make everyone happy, I sometimes lie, tell half truths, hide things from that person, and do things that I really don't want to do. I also have the problem of saying no to people. This causes a lot of problems and it can lead to hurt feelings, loss of friendships, and many other detrimental effects. I need to find a happy medium of being a people pleaser. I need to learn that I cannot please everyone and I cannot always make myself look good and not bad (I'm imperfect too, even though I don't like to admit this to others).